It's time to dispel the Rasmussen myths. First, he was NOT the most accurate in 2008. The articles that state this rank him first because he was the most consistent throughout Oct 2008. But there is no way to tell whether he was more correct in the middle of Oct than the others. Only that last poll can be verified by actual election results. In 2008, Rasmussen was tied for 6th most accurate and beat by others.

2008 actual results: Obama +7.3

Polling outfits closest to 7.3:

CNN/Opinion Research - off by 0.3 Ipsos/McClatchy - off by 0.3 Fox News - off by 0.3 IBD/TIPP - off by 0.7 NBC News/WSJ - off by 0.7

Rasmussen - off by 1.3 Pew Research - off by 1.3 GW University - off by 1.3

And Gallup - off by 3.7 (tied for worst)

Fast forward to 2010 and we see that Rasmussen was third from last by being off 5.2 and Gallup was dead last by being off by 8.2

And this year, Obama is currently up about 2.22 points but that will likely increase to between 2.5 and 3 as west coast mail-ins are counted. Here are the major pollsters listed in order of accuracy this year

What are we seeing here? First, as I posted a few days ago, Rasmussen and Gallup made major mistakes thinking anecdotal evidence trumps actual survey data. Part ID in a poll FOLLOWS the vote, not the other way around. There's about 10 to 20 percent of the country that will call themselves Republican or Democrat based on how they vote. In 2004 and 2010, more called themselves Republican than in 2008 and this year because they want to be on the winning team or simply call themselves what they vote. You cannot screw with party ID info because it is very fluid for a chunk of the middle and not at all rigid. Rasmussen and Gallup made this mistake in 2010 and screwed up.

Second, the pollsters listed above prove that you MUST do a minimum of 25% cell phones, 30% cell phones performed best, and those who did LIVE interviews or internet soundly defeated the others. Automated phone calls simply don't cut it anymore. It's waaay cheaper yes, but in an era when only 10% of people will talk to a live pollster where just 20 years ago it was almost 36%, you can't do automated. Only 2 to 4 percent of people will answer an automated poll.

It really made me angry to see Drudge cherry pick this data in the week before the election. There were 12 or more polls averaging one thing and he choose the two outliers to give false hope and that really pissed me off. Why? Because it bleeds into the campaigns and the conservative ground game and the start to relax or target the wrong states.

Excellent. Glad to see some of us are accepting reality. Rasmussen is terrible and is just there to push a Conservative meme. Gallup has been a joke for years. The LV model is usually wrong, look to RVs. And, no, there wasn’t Dem oversampling. Time to drop the conspiracy theories fellow Conservatives. Time to ignore the whack jobs.

Polling outfits closest to 7.3: CNN/Opinion Research - off by 0.3 Ipsos/McClatchy - off by 0.3 Fox News - off by 0.3 IBD/TIPP - off by 0.7 NBC News/WSJ - off by 0.7

Rasmussen - off by 1.3 Pew Research - off by 1.3 GW University - off by 1.3

And Gallup - off by 3.7 (tied for worst) Fast forward to 2010 and we see that Rasmussen was third from last by being off 5.2 and Gallup was dead last by being off by 8.2 And this year, Obama is currently up about 2.22 points but that will likely increase to between 2.5 and 3 as west coast mail-ins are counted. Here are the major pollsters listed in order of accuracy this year

FREEPERS need to stop with the bull crap that polls are garbage. We got screwed because we didn’t believe the polls and got so dang arrogant. This was about the dumbest thing we did. Oh...the polls oversample....whatever.

Bingo. Exactly right. It is time to stop whining about the polls. They are getting better and better and when averaged together are remarkably accurate.

There is no silent majority of people simmering beneath the surface just waiting to the do the right thing. If anything, it's the other way around. Demographically, we are losing and losing badly and the polls demonstrate it.

There is no silent majority of people simmering beneath the surface just waiting to the do the right thing. If anything, it's the other way around. Demographically, we are losing and losing badly and the polls demonstrate it.

Actually the other side also has a simmering silent class also.

We have to get used to the fact that until the collapse, no conservative will win.

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